


In a Month that Brings Just Ice

by talefeathers



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, idk how i'd tag that but yes there is that, oh and there are a lot of references to enjolras not eating?, self-indulgent gratuitous sadness let's do this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 10:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2225445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/pseuds/talefeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Combeferre is dead and his friends struggle with the hole his absence leaves, especially in their chief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic focuses on Enjolras' grieving process using the other Amis as lenses, and I just wanted to say that my intention in writing this fic was _not_ to minimize anyone's (especially Courfeyrac's) relationship with Combeferre. I'm really sorry if it comes off that way; when I started writing this fic I was fascinated by Enjolras and Combeferre's dynamic, and so that is the dynamic I chose to explore. I hope that you'll find, especially in the later chapters, that I did my best to represent a balanced chief, guide, and center relationship even though my primary focus is Enjolras.
> 
> Enjoy!

Combeferre had said he could go home if he wanted, grinning up at Enjolras from beneath droopy eyelids as an IV dripped painkillers into his arm, but Enjolras had promised to stay. No need to make his bespectacled friend’s parents drive all the way out here when he was already up, especially when, according to Combeferre, this should be a quick and easy fix. “Just a lithotripsy; hardly neuroscience,” had been the way he’d put it, going on to slur through an extensive history of the procedure. Besides, even if Enjolras had had no other excuse to stay, he couldn’t quite shake the image of calm, steady Combeferre curled up in the middle of the floor, pale and sweaty and clutching whimpers between his teeth. Asking as gently as he could if Enjolras could “maybe call an ambulance” for him.

Enjolras sighed, finishing a crossword puzzle on his smartphone and shaking a hand through his hair before glancing at the clock on the waiting room wall, as if it would have something different to report from the digital one in the upper righthand corner of his phone’s screen. For about the 31st time, it didn’t. He hid a yawn in his jacket sleeve, slumping down even further in his seat and telling himself that the second he fell asleep would be the second a nurse came in looking for him. He opened another puzzle, elbowing Courfeyrac when the latter started to snore.

\---

“Enjolras?”

Enjolras started back into wakefulness, nearly tipping himself out of his chair. This commotion woke Courfeyrac, too, who wiped a patch of drool from his chin.

“How’s he doin’? Ready to rock?” Courfeyrac asked, snickering as he jumped to his feet. “Geddit? Kidney _stones_ , ready to _rock?_ ” Enjolras stayed put, still shaking off fuzziness. He saw that it wasn’t a nurse who had come to greet them, but the surgeon himself. He frowned, fumbling to get the time from his phone. Only ten minutes had passed since the last time he’d checked, meaning Combeferre had only been under the proverbial knife for half an hour.

“You might want to sit back down.”

Enjolras raised his head. The doctor had put a hand on one of Courfeyrac’s shoulders; the eager grin was sliding off of Courfeyrac’s face.

“Is he okay?” Courfeyrac asked.

The doctor closed his eyes. “There were some... some complications.”

Enjolras let that hang in the air a moment. “Is he _going_ to be okay?”

The surgeon sighed, and all at once Enjolras wanted to go bursting through the double doors into the surgery ward, wanted to find Combeferre and see him, hold his hand, tousle his hair. Remind him, say “You’re my best friend.”

“I’m sorry, boys. We lost him about ten minutes ago.”

“Lost...?” The word barely squeaked out of Courfeyrac’s throat.

Enjolras felt something trying to climb into his lungs, trying to breathe all of his air. Trying to lock up his throat, to wrap around his heart. He swallowed the feeling and held it down; he suffocated it.

Courfeyrac stumbled back a couple of steps and fell into his chair. Enjolras could hear the doctor explaining what had happened but nothing was making it past surface level. No sooner would his brain interpret the words than he would discard them; they were feeding the parasite curled into his chest. He starved it, he shoved it back down.

When the surgeon finally walked away, Courfeyrac dropped his head into his hands, holding it as though it might split. Enjolras could hear his uneven, shallow breathing. It was like he thought he should cry, but couldn’t remember how. Maybe he was going into shock.

Enjolras knew he should try to comfort him, but he was so busy wrestling his monster that what he heard himself say instead was “Well. This sucks.”


	2. Chapter 2

Joly was gone already when Bossuet woke up, but that wasn’t entirely unusual; the med student’s schedule seemed constantly in flux. A hastily scrawled note stuck to the mirror, however, ruled school out as the reason for his roommate’s absence: “At the apartment -- come when you can.”

Bossuet furrowed his brow. “The apartment” referred to the on-campus townhouse shared by Enjolras, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, and Marius. He frowned down at the cracked screen of his smartphone; it was only 10:00 in the morning. What could be going on over there this early? He yawned, rubbing his hands over his stubbly head before dragging them down his sleep-slack face. Then he set about getting ready. He didn’t have class until 2 -- he had time to figure out what the deal was.

On his way over (walking, of course; in spite of his best efforts, he hadn’t managed to catch the shuttle), he happened upon a penny, heads-up. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d even seen one, much less the last time he’d picked one up. He stuffed it into his jacket pocket, grinning lightly to himself.

To his surprise, Musichetta, and not one of the townhouse’s actual residents, answered the door at his knock, her hair a cloud of kinky, unkempt curls and her eyes bloodshot. Bossuet’s first stomach-dropping thought was that she’d spent the night over here, probably with Courfeyrac. He had to remind himself that neither Musichetta nor Courfeyrac would do that to Joly, at the very least not without asking him first. Then again, maybe that's why Joly was here. Maybe Courfeyrac had the guts to ask for what Bossuet had always wanted, the relationship he'd always kept quiet about because he wasn't sure if his capacity to handle rejection covered rejection by the two people he loved most in the world. It was just his luck, really, that this precaution would turn around and bite him. Oh God maybe he should just --

“Oh, honey,” Musichetta sighed, pulling him tight against her. After a second’s heart-stopping hesitation (she’s so warm and so strong and so beautiful), Bossuet hugged her back.

“Um,” was his elegant response.

They stayed that way for what seemed to Bossuet an incredibly inappropriate length of time before Musichetta released him, holding him at arm’s length.

“How you holding up?” she asked, her large brown eyes searching his own.

“Uh, okay, I guess,” he said carefully. “Did -- did something happen?”

The strained but comforting smile fell away from her face, leaving only a shocked species of pity.

“You haven’t heard?”

“Heard _what?_ ”

“Oh, _jeez,_ ” she exhaled with a grimace. “You’d, um. You’d better come inside.”

He didn’t want to. He wanted to go back to his dorm, back to bed. He wanted to stomp that lying lucky penny back into the street and rewrite today into something a little more his style: missing the shuttle to class because he’d stopped to help a freshman find the business building, getting scolded for passing notes when really he was just returning someone’s dropped grocery list, that sort of thing. Unlucky, but for all the right reasons. Not like this.

Almost everyone Bossuet knew was crammed into the apartment’s tiny living room: Courfeyrac, Cosette, Joly, Jehan, Grantaire, Eponine, even Bahorel and Feuilly, who lived all the way in town. Even with so many of his friends sharing such a small space, however, an eerie silence hung in the air. The knot in his stomach tightened; this didn’t look nearly as simple as he had thought it was.

Joly jumped to his feet.

“Hey, Boss -- you okay?”

“He doesn’t know yet,” Musichetta snapped before Bossuet could answer, leveling a glare at Joly. The med student seemed to shrink.

“Oh, you didn’t tell him?” he said, his voice a mouselike murmur.

“I figured _you_ would have already, being his _roommate_ and all. You just left him without saying anything?”

“I -- I really was going to I just -- I couldn’t. I couldn’t even think it, much less say it, and I didn’t want to wake him up with _that,_ I just --”

“ _Just tell me already!_ ” Bossuet shouted, causing everyone in the room to jump.

“Combeferre’s dead.” Courfeyrac’s voice was so low that Bossuet almost didn’t hear it from the far side of the room where the former was curled into a couch.

His eyes darted around the tiny living room, because that couldn’t be right, this was some awful joke. Wasn’t Combeferre here, wasn’t he sitting in that university-issue armchair he liked so much, wasn’t he halfway done with his second cup of coffee and blinking owlishly around at all his friends, wasn’t he offering his calm consolation? “He’s just yanking your chain, Boss, I’m right here.” Wasn’t he? 

Bossuet closed his eyes and exhaled.

“Guys, if this is a joke you’d better tell me right the fuck now because it’s not funny.”

He felt a hand wrap around his and squeeze. Joly’s.

“I wish it was. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner.”

Bossuet covered his eyes with his free hand. He could feel tears sneaking into them; not the real kind yet, but the kind that jump to your eyes when you get punched in the nose: reflexive, more paralysis than real hurt.

“So does -- does everybody know?” he asked, trying to keep a hold on the world around him the way Joly had a hold on his hand. “Am I the last one?”

“Marius still doesn’t know,” Cosette murmured. “He’s in a pretty big exam right now. We figured we’d, y’know. Let him get through that first.”

Bossuet’s heart twisted in his chest. _Poor kid._

He took a few deep breaths, and once he was sure he wasn’t going to break (not here, at any rate, not now), he dashed the few tears he’d shed from his cheeks and surveyed the room once more.

“C’mon, you should sit down,” Joly said with a gentle tug on his hand. Bossuet stayed where he was for a moment, though, something about the composition of the room nagging at the edges of his senses.

“Where’s Enjolras?”

The tension that had been softly buzzing through the room rose to a tight hum that prickled the hairs on Bossuet’s arms. It took a few seconds for it to fade back to a buzz.

“He’s in his room,” Musichetta answered, her voice barely a murmur. “He hasn’t talked to anyone. Hasn't unlocked the door.”

And for some reason, that tipped the balance. Enjolras, the chief, the flagbearer. Bossuet had, on many occasions, seen him take a dire situation and breathe his words into it until it _burned_ with hope. Enjolras would only have retreated if there was absolutely nothing he could salvage from the wreckage.

Bossuet collapsed into a chair, with Joly and Musichetta on either side of him, and sobbed.


	3. Chapter 3

Marius was the last one to be told. Grantaire had done it as gently as he could.

“Last night Combeferre had to be rushed to the hospital,” he’d said, staring at his hands as if he could will them to stop shaking. “It was just a simple thing, he -- he needed some kidney stones removed, but. He had a bad reaction to the anesthetic.” Marius felt his throat closing up as he watched Grantaire make himself say it: “He didn’t make it.”

Marius couldn’t have said how long it was before his sobs died down, before Grantaire’s protective hold on him had loosened and he’d transferred him to Cosette’s arms. Now, however, the lanky law student sniffled into Cosette’s collarbone while she rubbed his back and carded through his chestnut hair, stopping sometimes to wipe her own swollen eyes. Marius was just thinking that he’d run out of tears to shed when a silence swept through the room and Cosette’s hold on him tightened. Marius looked up.

Enjolras had wandered in, tousled and vacant -- the way he looked halfway through his morning coffee. The eyes he passed over his friends were flat at first glance, but after a second’s looking Marius saw something buried beneath the ice. He couldn’t have said what that something was, only that it was very, very dull to be sawing at his heart the way it was.

“Anybody want tea or coffee or anything?” Enjolras asked. The something in his eyes hadn’t made it to his voice; he just spoke a bit softer than was usual. Everyone did now.

A murmur rustled through the room, acceptances mingling with declines. Enjolras nodded and went into the kitchen, leaving a cold emptiness in the pit of Marius’s stomach. Cosette must have felt it, too; she pushed his hair back and pressed a long kiss to his forehead.

“We’ll be okay,” she whispered. “We’ll all be okay.”

Marius shook his head. Cosette allowed herself a sad smile.

“It’ll probably take a while,” she conceded. “You and I know that better than most everybody here. But you know what else you and I know better?”

Marius met her eyes miserably, remembering the ache of losing his father just when he’d started getting to know him, remembering when Cosette had haltingly told him about her mother. She wiped some tears from his cheeks before pulling his forehead to meet hers.

“We know that we’ll come out on the other side,” she said. “We’ll hurt for a while, and that hurt will last longer for some of us than for others.” 

There was a brief pause in which they both made a point of not glancing toward the kitchen. 

“And -- and it might change us in some ways, but we _will_ be happy again. You and I are living proof. And until then?” 

She caught his lips in a soft, sweet kiss and Marius sank into it, eyes falling shut.

“Until then we’ll stick together. All of us. Just like we always have.”

“What would I do without you?” Marius murmured, eyes still shut. Cosette smiled and kissed him again.

“You’ll never have to find out.”


	4. Chapter 4

Jehan pulled Courfeyrac’s door closed as gently as he could, not wanting to wake him now that he’d finally drifted to sleep. Rather than make his way to the front door of the apartment, however, he moved in the opposite direction and tapped on the last door in the hallway.

“Enjolras?” he murmured. He waited a few seconds and tapped again. “Enjolras.” Nothing. He tried the doorknob.

The lights were off, but the blinds had been left open so that the setting of the sun washed through the room, showing partiality, as it always did, to the golden curls spilled on Enjolras’s pillow. Jehan took a step back, meaning to leave his friend to his nap, but he stopped when he noticed that he wasn’t napping at all; his eyes were open, locked onto the wall opposite him. A little more looking revealed the tightness of the blond boy’s jaw, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple.

“Hey, Enj,” Jehan said, finally stepping the rest of the way into the room. He almost sat down on the empty bed across from the occupied one, but the lance of pain the idea shot through his heart decided him against it. He pulled the chair out from under Enjolras’s desk and straddled it, resting his chin on the back. “You okay?”

He felt like an idiot every time he asked it. _Hey, you know the guy you spent so much of the last four years with that half the school thought you were dating? He's been your roommate since freshman year; he's your right-hand man, an anchor drawn in shades that perfectly complement your own. And he’s gone now. For good. You'll never hear his voice again and you never even got to say goodbye. How are you FEELING? Are you OKAY?_ There had to be a better way to broach the subject. He didn’t know it, though, so he just had to hope that he didn’t look as insensitive as he sounded.

“I’m fine,” Enjolras said. “I’m just taking a break.”

Jehan bit back the joke that rose to his tongue, the shock-and-awe squawk about Enjolras allowing anything to stand in the way of his cause. Instead he let it sink in just how serious it was that someone he’d always described to others as “stuck at top speed” had come to a halt.

“Yeah.” He’d filled pages already since the morning before when the news had punched him in the gut, yet somehow he still couldn’t think of anything to say out loud. Especially not to one who seemed so determined not to hear. So for a few minutes he said nothing, watching Enjolras slowly relax as Jehan began to blend more and more with the room around them.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked after he’d let a good-sized silence stretch between them. Another, shorter silence filled the space when Enjolras didn’t answer. Jehan sighed.

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” he said as he stood. When he stopped by Enjolras’s bed to give his golden curls a farewell tousle, however, Enjolras reached up to grab Jehan’s wrist.

“Don’t leave yet,” he murmured. 

Jehan tilted his head to one side. “What do you need?”

“Nothing,” he said, clearing his throat when his voice came out gruff. “I just don’t like it when it’s empty in here. I think better when… when someone else is thinking nearby.”

And all at once Jehan wanted to leave, more than _anything_ he had to get out, in spite of his friend’s obvious pain. Because it felt stifling and irreverent and _wrong_ to even attempt to fill the place of that “someone else.” It felt like erasing, it felt like forgetting, and worst of all it felt like the one getting erased and forgotten wasn’t Combeferre, but it was _Jehan_ , Combeferre’s “mini-me,” his “apprentice,” his “little brother,” his “heir,” who was being called forth now to fulfill his duty as replacement. All of this Jehan felt in a split second and he wanted to tear his hand away from the frighteningly lethargic firestarter, wanted to run or scream or break something. But he swallowed it all. Because at heart, he and Combeferre really were a lot alike; neither of them had ever been able to bring himself to leave a friend in need.

Without an answer, he took a seat on the edge of Enjolras’s bed. He refused to pick up one of the books strewn about, though, as Combeferre would have done. He merely watched his friend’s breathing even out again and realized, more poignantly than he had until now, just how much of both of them Combeferre had taken with him.


	5. Chapter 5

“When’s the last time you ate?” Joly tried to sound nonchalant while he rooted through his friends’ pantry. He ran a worried periphery glance over the haggard journalism major to his left. Shadowy, pale, drawn. A perfect inversion of everything Enjolras normally was.

“I’m not hungry,” came the response at half-volume.

“That’s not what I asked,” Joly sighed, settling for a package of ramen noodles in spite of his misgivings about them. He dug around the cabinets until he found a pot and put some water on the stove to boil. “Might be crap, but it’s better than starvation,” he muttered. He went to the fridge for the pitcher of water so he could pour Enjolras a glass. He winced at the pictures magneted to the door, at the familiar handwriting on the sticky notes. He didn’t imagine that they made remembering to eat any easier.

“You know what I’ve been wondering?” 

Joly’s stomach clenched, but he managed to look up with a comforting little smile that would someday put him in high demand as a pediatrician. “What’s that?” he asked.

Enjolras didn’t look up. He was silent a moment before answering: “If I’d gotten home a little earlier. Y’know, the other night, if I’d… just a little earlier… D’you think it would’ve made a difference? D’you think, maybe…?” He shrugged. Joly allowed his smile to fade with a sigh, dumping the noodles into the pot before turning back to his hollow-eyed friend.

“Enjolras, what happened was… was a fluke. Nobody could’ve predicted it and it wasn’t anybody’s _fault_ , it just…” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, studying the pattern on the kitchen counter. “It just happened.”

Enjolras nodded, tight-lipped. Joly broke the block of noodles with a wooden spoon, trying to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, without knowing what he was apologizing for.

Enjolras still didn’t look up, but his response brought the subject to a firm close: “Don’t.”


	6. Chapter 6

When he heard the news, Grantaire didn’t drink. It hurt more than anything ever had and his shaking hands reached for his empty refrigerator more than once, but he refused to drown this suffering out. If anyone deserved the full force of Grantaire’s crippling, clear-headed grief, it was Combeferre. Thus, in the days leading up to the funeral, he was bloodshot and haggard and prone to snap, but sober. Horribly, painfully sober.

He watched his friends fall apart around him and wondered who would take up the burden Combeferre had shouldered so bravely, who would pull themselves together in time to get the rest of them back on their feet. Maybe none of them would. It wouldn’t exactly shock Grantaire to discover that Combeferre had really been that much stronger than the rest of them. He’d carried their collective weight for years and had rarely made even the smallest sound of protest. Then again, Combeferre had never had to carry them through anything quite like this.

A day came when Courfeyrac texted the group, saying that they all needed to grab any stuff they might have lent to Combeferre before his family came to clear his things out of the room he'd shared with Enjolras. Grantaire considered ignoring it. He hadn’t left anything important. He’d let Combeferre borrow some movies; nothing irreplaceable. And then he was texting Courfeyrac back, saying he’d swing by that afternoon. Maybe he could wring some closure from this.

He tried to smile at Courfeyrac when the latter answered the door to the apartment. Courfeyrac didn’t try to smile back.

“How you doin’, Courf?”

“The same.”

He nodded sympathetically, noting Courfeyrac’s guarded expression. Grantaire wasn’t welcome to share in his grief. He exhaled and tried not to take it personally; maybe Courfeyrac was bristling at everyone now. It was stupid to assume that Grantaire was the only one that everyone seemed to be greeting with tight lips and tighter shoulders. Wasn’t it?

“Yeah. Well, you know, if you need anything…” Grantaire stopped, now hyper-aware of how much he sounded like everyone he’d been trying to avoid, like his mother, his sister, his professors. Sometimes you just had to accept that you didn’t understand, that there was nothing you could do. 

_But I_ do _understand. He was my friend, too, why doesn’t anyone --?_

“I’ll just -- go grab my stuff.”

He edged past Courfeyrac and made his way to the bedroom at the end of the hall.

Mercifully, Enjolras wasn’t there; Grantaire didn’t have to hide the tears that jumped to his eyes when he was hit with Combeferre’s scent: books mixed with coffee mixed with… something else. His shampoo, probably. Grantaire could almost see the gentle grin, could hear that owlish murmur:

_Hey, Grantaire. How are you doing today?_ This was never a rhetorical question from him, never smalltalk. His gray-blue eyes would search Grantaire’s murky browns with a sincerity that Grantaire rarely earned from anyone else.

_I’ve been better, Ferre. I’ve been better._

He released a shaky breath and made himself walk further into the room. After the first step it was easier.

He started with the sketches tacked to the wall, mostly anatomical studies that he'd used Combeferre's books to complete. They didn't have much apparent sentimental significance; most of them weren't even signed with Grantaire's Zorro-esque, slashing R. But that was just why he took them: they wouldn't mean anything to anyone else.

He didn't quite know where he should begin the search for his DVDs. The idea of digging through his friend's stuff pooled guilt into his stomach even without the added weight of that friend's permanent absence. Who knew what he might stumble across?

In an effort to steel himself he turned to face Enjolras's side of the room. Almost immediately, his eyes caught on a brightly colored paperback tossed amid the mess. _Life of Pi._ Grantaire had read it; Combeferre had let him borrow it after they'd had a lengthy, late-night discussion about religion as a concept. The book was on the wrong side, in the wrong clutter, he was positive. And surely such a thing shouldn't matter to him; it wasn't as if he lived here. Why should he care if one of Combeferre's books, one that he had lent Grantaire once upon a time, was with Enjolras's things?

He knew he shouldn’t pick it up. He needed to do what he came to do and get out, but the book nagged at him. He told himself over and over again that of course it didn’t matter, that he should just leave it be; Combeferre was known for lending out his books, and even if he hadn't lent it to him Enjolras had probably pulled it from Combeferre’s shelf to read the notes written inside it in that gently slanting hand. Trying to pull something of his lost friend from the pages. One certainly couldn't blame him, if that was the case. But it wouldn’t leave Grantaire alone.

He picked it up. He ran his thumb through the pages, stopping on a page about halfway through. He stared. Because the handwriting in the margins was Enjolras’s.

“What the...?” he muttered, continuing to flip.

The first 40 or so pages jumped out from behind his thumb so that he was looking at the inside cover. So that he was reading a note written in a gently slanting hand.

_Enjolras,_

_This is one of my favorites -- I expect to see it dog-eared and well-loved within the month! It’s taught me so much: about storytelling, about faith, about life and death and the things we do to endure both. It’s an incredible experience that raises just as many questions as it answers, and I know that you’ll come to love and appreciate it just as much as I do._

_I’m glad we got to be roommates this year; few freshmen are as lucky as we were to hit it off so well. You always joke about me being the teacher, but I’ve learned a lot from you these past months about the kind of footprints I want to leave on this world. Albert Camus said that “the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” In meeting you, I came to truly understand what that means. When you lead your charge against our unfree world, Enjolras, you can count on me being right there beside you._

_Merry Christmas,_

_Combeferre_

The bedroom door opened. Grantaire’s mouth was dry.

“Enjolras,” he rasped, lowering his eyes because it would be wrong to notice how beautiful he was now, in light of everything that had happened. Where he’d once been fresh-cut marble he was now a ruin, crumbled and cracking, but no less breathtaking for all that, and Grantaire hated himself for thinking so. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras said, low and sharp.

“I -- I was just --” Grantaire forced himself to exhale. “I was just grabbing some stuff.”

“Like my copy of _Life of Pi?_ ”

“I was just…” Of course there wasn’t a really good explanation handy for this one. He shrugged uselessly.

“You should probably go.”

“Yeah, I’ll just grab my --”

“Please just leave.” 

Grantaire fought the sting rising in his throat.

“I can’t grab the rest of my stuff? It’ll take two se --”

“What,” Enjolras said, venom adding a sickening shade to his tone, “leave some _booze?_ ”

_He’s hurt. He’s lashing out. He doesn’t mean it, don’t let him pull you into this fight he wants to have._

Grantaire’s hands curled into fists in spite of himself. Because he was hurting, too.

“What the _fuck_ is that supposed to mean?”

“It means fuck off.”

“No, what is this, huh? What's your beef with me this time? Go ahead! Let it out! Tell me everything you wouldn’t say if he were here --!”

“ _Shut up!_ ”

“ _NO!_ ” Grantaire was shaking now. “ _I’m trying to grieve my friend, but you’re so fucking convinced that you’ve got DIBS, that I’m not hurting enough to be here --!_ ”

“ _It should’ve been YOU!_ ” Enjolras bellowed.

There was a second when neither of them breathed.

“Grantaire, I’m --”

“You’re right.” Grantaire gave a hollow laugh and noted with sick pleasure the way it made the taller boy grimace. “No, you’re absolutely right. If any of us deserves to die it’s probably me. I don’t stand for anything like the rest of you do. I don’t take care of myself. It should’ve been me. Especially in place of Combeferre, it should’ve been me.”

“No, I didn’t --”

“But allow me to give you some fucking insight, Goldilocks.” Grantaire moved so that he and Enjolras were almost nose-to-nose. There were tears standing in Enjolras’s eyes. Good. “The only reason it wasn’t me, the _only_ reason I didn’t go first, was because I had friends who consistently kept that from happening. Combeferre _prominent_ among them.”

Enjolras lowered his eyes.

“He took care of _all_ of us,” Grantaire continued. “He was _all_ of ours, and we’re _all_ fucked up over it. So next time you wanna pick a self-righteous little bitchfight keep me out of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Enjolras murmured, barely above a whisper.

“Fucking save it,” Grantaire growled, pushing past him and shouldering his way out the door.


	7. Chapter 7

Combeferre’s friends were all squirming under the gazes of Combeferre’s family, who were seated behind them rather than in front, per his parents’ request. An uncle did a poor job of concealing his whispers that this wasn’t “right,” that those young men and women “weren’t there when he was growing up.” That they “barely knew him.” Feuilly ducked his head and fiddled with his jacket’s cuffs. He felt underdressed.

None of them really knew the extent of the rift between Combeferre and his more distant relatives, because he hadn’t been the kind to talk about that sort of thing. They only knew that Combeferre returned from all holidays that involved aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins with frayed nerves, and that if you crossed him too soon after Thanksgiving break you were likely to be coldly dismantled in five words or less.

“And what is that one _wearing?_ Never mind that we’re in a _church_ \-- he could’ve tried a little harder for a _funeral._ ”

Feuilly ducked his head even further, his whole face reddening. Eponine nudged him gently.

“Just don’t listen to them.”

Well, that was easier said than done, wasn’t it?

“Hey,” Eponine said, more loudly this time. Feuilly took a deep breath, ensuring composure, before looking up into kind brown eyes. “Just take one look at her and you tell me if she knows what she’s talking about. You’ll know which one she is the second you turn around.”

Feuilly rolled his eyes, but turn around he did, and he almost didn’t turn back fast enough to disguise his laughter as a coughing fit.

“Oh God,” he choked. “She had the _audacity --_ ”

“Right? Like the 80s would be offended by that dress,” she said, giggling while she tugged at the hem of her own dress, which was nice enough but which had also been steadily shortening over the last four years as she had continued to grow. “Can’t wait to hear what she has to say about my _modesty._ ”

Feuilly didn’t bother to pretend to cough that time. Another hiss about “laughing at a funeral” and “disrespect” floated from behind. Feuilly should have brushed it off, should have flipped the bird over his shoulder, but instead he remembered, with a jolt, why they were here. He glanced to his right, across the aisle to the pew where Combeferre’s parents sat with his two younger sisters. His mother looked up and gave Feuilly a watery smile.

“This sucks,” he murmured.

Eponine gave a long sigh. “Yeah, and it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.” She glanced to their left, where Enjolras was sitting at the end of their pew. “I almost wish he hadn’t agreed to speak. It’s gonna be gutting.”

“Yeah, let’s just hope no one says anything stupi --”

“If you ask me it was coming to him sooner or later.”

“ _Dad!_ ”

“You’re right, you’re right; probably not the place. But if you go running around with a bunch of delinquents like that and calling yourself an anarchist or whatever he thought he was it’s really only a matter of time. I _tried_ to tell his parents --”

“Oh my God, please quiet down.”

“-- but why should they listen to me, right? It really is a shame. He was such a bright boy.”

Feuilly hated the sound his teeth made when he ground them together, but he couldn’t seem to loosen his jaw.

“Let the games begin, then,” Eponine muttered while Feuilly watched Enjolras' cold eyes harden.

 

The service was awful, and not just in the ways that funerals are always awful (although there was plenty of that, as well). Everything just seemed so trite, so formulaic, so _dishonest._ Feuilly didn’t believe for a second that Combeferre’s parents had picked the readings; not without lots of outside help. The music was dull, the priest’s mind was miles away, and all the while his friend was in that box. A crucial piece of the world had been yanked from its foundation and everything was tilted and unbalanced and these people couldn’t tell, didn’t _care._ He wanted to scream at them.

When Enjolras was called to speak, Feuilly was almost relieved. At least this would mean something. At least Enjolras knew, beyond any doubt, the gravity of what had transpired. He knew how big of a gap had been left in everything. All the same, Feuilly’s stomach twisted into a knot. Because yes, what Enjolras said was going to be true. But what Eponine had said was true, too: this was going to be _gutting._

“Oh, here we go,” huffed the man from before.

“Dad, oh my _God._ ”

Enjolras took his place on the altar, and he settled his gaze on the man: another of Combeferre’s uncles. It was the first time Feuilly had seen anything in those eyes for days. Something in Enjolras had stirred, and when he leaned into the microphone to say what he had to say, Feuilly almost thought the old fire was flickering back, but something dark hovered at its edges. Something bitter.

"You'll have to forgive me if I forget to put things in the past tense,” he said, finally relinquishing the uncle and sweeping his icy gaze over the rest of those gathered. “I'm still forgetting a lot of things. I'm still forgetting that I don't have to leave a pot of coffee behind me when I leave for class in the morning. That no one's going to remind me to eat whatever meal I’ve forgotten this time. That when my phone buzzes it's not going to be him. That kind of thing."

On Feuilly’s left Bahorel dropped his head into his hands, shoulders shaking. Feuilly curled his hands into fists. It was the most he'd heard Enjolras speak in days and now he could hear the thing gnawing at him, the parasite that had taken up residence in their leader's chest. It hadn't just sucked the passion from the voice that could have commanded legions; it also whispered beneath it, sharp with pain.

“I get the feeling that many of you expect me to do a lot of preaching. That you expect me to use this altar the same way I might use a megaphone outside the capitol. And all I can say to you if that’s what you expect is that you don’t know Combeferre very well at all.” An empty grin. “Didn’t, I mean.”

He exhaled and stared down at the podium. Feuilly watched his fingers tighten around its edges.

“Combeferre wasn’t about starting fires,” he continued without looking up. “His warmth wasn’t blazing; it didn’t come from tearing things down. He was a light, but not a flame. So even though I’m numb with cold, I’m not going to start a fire here. I’m not going to rail against the people who stifled him or the dumb luck that took him away. I’m not even going to raise my voice. I’m just going to do what I didn’t get the chance to do before. I’m just going to say goodbye.”

The whole front row was in tears now, with the notable exception of Courfeyrac, who held his head in his hands and whose eyes remained dry, but who couldn’t seem to look up to where Enjolras stood. Feuilly squeezed his eyes shut and slumped into sobs, tightening his hold on Eponine’s hand on his right and Bahorel’s on his left. Because somehow he knew that hearing Enjolras let go would make Combeferre’s death real in a way that nothing else would. It would be undeniable, inescapable. Enjolras took a deep breath. Feuilly opened his eyes.

“Combeferre.” He let the name hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “You always went out of your way to make sure that every relationship you formed was a unique one. I think all of us can say that we each felt individually special to you, which is a testament to just -- just how much you had to give. And you gave _all_ of it. And you mean so much, Ferre, to all of us, and I hope you know that. You are. Were.” A glance toward Grantaire, whose red eyes were fixed on the bottom step of the altar. “You were all of ours.”

Enjolras closed his eyes and took a steadying breath, forced his hands out of the white-knuckled claws they’d become on the edges of the podium.

“And as for me it’s… it’s kind of like losing an arm.” A pause. “It hurts. It hurts more than anything ever has. And maybe someday I’ll get used to it, but…” Deep breath. “Nothing’s ever gonna fill that space as perfectly as you did.”

“ _Stop,_ ” Feuilly heard Courfeyrac plead through his hands.

Enjolras didn’t, not yet; first he stepped away from the podium and closed the distance between himself and that ominous wooden box. He pressed his lips to the tips of his fingers, then pressed those to the smooth casket. And though he never opened his mouth, everyone heard it: _I love you._

This done, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and, empty-eyed, resumed his seat. 

“At least that wasn’t -- bullshit,” Eponine tried to chuckle through her tears. She’d long since abandoned the effort of keeping her makeup intact, scraping a tissue across her eyes without even a feign of delicacy.

Feuilly could only nod, his throat clogged with sobs. Because, just like he’d predicted, it was over now. Really over. Death had stacked the chairs on the tables, had locked the door behind her on her way out. And she’d taken Combeferre with her.


	8. Chapter 8

Bahorel pawed around the fridge for something to drink, panting and soaked with sweat. He’d run his usual circuit twice this evening, until his muscles and his mind throbbed with a singing numbness. He glanced at the clock on the microwave after gulping down some Gatorade and grimaced when he saw that it was still pretty early; Feuilly would be worried if he came home and Bahorel was in bed already. He sighed heavily, deciding he’d marathon something on Netflix after he showered to keep his eyes open until it was acceptable to close them for the night.

As he was putting the Gatorade back his phone burst into the chorus of “Come With Me Now” by KONGOS. He fished it from his shorts pocket and when he saw the name on the caller ID his stomach dropped. He swiped the screen, leaving a streak, and put the device to his ear.

“'Lo?”

“Hey, Bahorel,” came Enjolras’s voice, sounding more automated than ever through a phone speaker. Bahorel clenched his teeth. “What’s up?”

“Just went for a run,” Bahorel said, forcing a smile even though he knew Enjolras couldn’t see him. “Everything okay?”

A pause followed that.

“Enj?”

“Sorry, yeah -- well, I mean no -- you know.”

Bahorel nodded, then remembered again that Enjolras couldn’t see him. “Yeah, I know.”

There was another pause, shorter than the last, before Enjolras blurted “I just need to forget about it for a night.”

Bahorel swallowed a sigh, pulling up the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe some sweat off his face with it. Most nights his runs were invigorating; just the right thing to put him in the mood for a night in the bars, which he figured must be what Enjolras had in mind. Tonight, though, nothing seemed less appealing to him than going out.

“I get that,” Bahorel said through a grimace. “I’ll grab a shower and then come pick you up, okay?”

Bahorel knew that if he didn’t go with him, Enjolras would just go by himself. He’d called out of habit; Bahorel was just the one you went to for this sort of thing. It probably wouldn’t have even occurred to him that he could go out and get hammered by himself until after he’d heard Bahorel say “Sorry, I can’t tonight,” and Bahorel wasn’t about to let that happen, tired as he was. While neither scenario was ideal, he had to choose the lesser of two evils. They had to look out for each other, now more than ever. 

“Thanks.” Enjolras hung up. Bahorel closed his eyes and exhaled before making his way to the bathroom to rid himself of the sweat glistening on his skin.

 

Things started out pretty uneventfully, and Bahorel made the mistake of allowing himself to hope that maybe nothing would happen; maybe Enjolras would quietly drink himself into a stupor and then Bahorel would put him to bed, no muss, no fuss. Right as he was thinking this, of course, a loud discussion between a pair of dudebros floated down to their end of the bar. On another day, Enjolras’s eyebrows would have pulled together and the corners of his lips would have dropped into a frown. He would have been exasperated, frustrated. He would still have argued, and it may still have gotten heated, but Bahorel could see that today it wasn’t about the ideas; it was about the fight. Enjolras gave his face over to a sickening grin and downed the drink he was working on before crossing the room.

It didn’t take long for him to earn a nice right hook. And it didn’t take long for that to evolve into an all-out beating.

Bahorel’s hands curled into fists as a combination of protectiveness and a deep, unchecked anger welled in his stomach. He wanted so badly to let battle-haze obscure his vision; for once he didn’t want a fight for the fun or for the adrenaline but for the pain. He wanted to _hurt._ He wanted _everyone_ to hurt.

He swallowed this urge and grabbed the frat boy pummelling Enjolras and, with the minimum amount of force necessary, pinned him to a wall.

“Leave him alone,” he said, voice deadly level.

“Fuck you!” the guy spat. Bahorel increased the pressure of his forearm on the guy’s chest.

“You hear about the guy who died this week?” Low, so that Enjolras wouldn’t hear.

“Wh--?”

“ _You hear about that?_ ”

“ _Yeah,_ fuckin pre-med kid!” the guy blurted, and Bahorel realized for the first time that this guy was even bigger than he was. He felt a touch of sick satisfaction.

“Guess whose best friend that is, you fuckin dildo? Guess whose fuckin _funeral_ we got to sit through yesterday, you piece of shit?”

“You’re full of --” Bahorel cut him off.

“Do I look drunk to you, punk?” he asked, voice rising. “Do you think I’m fucking _playing_ with you?”

“Doesn’t give your buddy a free pass to be an asshole!”

“Then what does, selling your soul for a fuckin tie?” Bahorel shot back, giving the Greek characters on the guy’s polo a solid flick. “You’ll get over it.”

He released the kid and shoved him. If he’d come back for more, Bahorel would have dropped him with a punch, but he hadn’t, instead stalking off to rejoin his frat brothers. Bahorel brushed off a twinge of disappointment and made his way back to Enjolras.

He was laughing; bloody and shitfaced and laughing on the wooden floor. Bahorel felt the bizarre urge to cry at the sight, but he managed to find a smile, instead.

“You’re a fuckin dickhead,” he said, offering him a hand and pulling him to his feet.

" _You_ wan’ed to hit ‘im, too," Enjolras replied with a loose shrug. “I _saw_ your face when ‘e said ‘reverse racism.’” 

Bahorel shook his head. “C’mon, you got your kicks pretty literally; I think it’s time to head out.”

“ _One_ more drink, one more,” Enjolras said, looking around for the bar, but Bahorel put a firm arm around his shoulders and pulled.

“You’ve had enough for one night. You’ve had enough probably for the rest of the week. C’mon.”

“I love you, Bahorel,” Enjolras said, his head dropping heavily onto his friend’s shoulder. “Do you know that?”

“I know, man. I love you, too.”

“I never -- got to tell Com’ferre --”

Bahorel’s heart twisted. He gave Enjolras’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Maybe not that night, and maybe not in so many words. But he knew, okay? And he loved you right back. You gotta know that.” He ran a thumb under each of his eyes as inconspicuously as he could while Enjolras nodded, cloudy and somber. “C’mon, man. Let’s get somewhere you can puke where I won’t have to clean it up, how’s that sound?”

“I don’t -- I won’t --”

“Oh yeah you will. Come on.”


	9. Chapter 9

By the time Courfeyrac got back from the library it was dark outside; he'd been given extensions on his assignments in almost every one of his classes, but he found himself trying to complete them on time, anyway. It occupied him, gave him something to do. And it got him out of the apartment.

After a few seconds of jiggling the key in the lock he shouldered his way inside, not expecting there to be much activity except for maybe Marius studying or watching TV. 

"Uh, hey."

Courfeyrac blinked. All the lights were on, there was music humming from Enjolras's laptop at a low volume, and Courfeyrac's blond housemate was...

"Are you _cooking?_ "

Enjolras tried a crooked little smile.

"Nothing too much. Burritos. Some rice."

Courfeyrac returned a weak smile of his own, wary of the itch crawling into his eyes.

"Y'know, it used to be that we were the ones reminding _you_ to eat.”

Enjolras shrugged. "Bout time I returned the favor, right? You've been working hard."

"Well. Thanks. Where's Marius?"

"Cosette's," Enjolras replied, sliding two burritos onto each of the plates he'd set out. "It's just you and me tonight."

Courfeyrac dropped his backpack and his coat onto the couch before grabbing a soda from the fridge and settling into a chair at their tiny kitchen table. He tried to ignore the tiny knot of apprehension tightening itself in his stomach while Enjolras set the plates down and took his own seat across from him.

They ate in relative silence for a few minutes, the only interruptions mundane little small-talk starters. How were classes, did they have plans this weekend. All the while the empty chair between them crept into Courfeyrac's periphery vision and stuck there like a belligerent pop-up ad. _Click here for a FREE TRIAL of crippling, paralyzing, all-encompassing GRIEF!_

It was Enjolras who finally broke the real silence between them.

"I know that you needed me," he said, barely audible, eyes on his plate. "You needed me more than you ever have, and I... shut down. I wasn't there."

Courfeyrac put his fork down without eating the mouthful of rice he’d just piled onto it. A bitter stew of feelings, of grief and of guilt and of anger and of sympathy, filled any spaces that had moments ago made room for food.

"Enjolras --" he rasped.

"No," Enjolras continued, looking up. "I was -- I was so paralyzed by living without Combeferre that -- that without even realizing it I started living without you, too."

It was Courfeyrac's turn to look down at his plate, bottom lip quivering in spite of his attempts to straighten it out.

"You were grieving, Enj," he said. "You needed space. Everyone does these things differently --"

"But I know how _you_ do these things. You're --" He swallowed. "I _know_ you. And maybe I needed space but I know how you deal and you needed someone there. Not that you didn't have Jehan and Marius and Joly and all the rest but... you needed Combeferre and you needed me and Combeferre’s --”

There was a moment when Courfeyrac didn’t think that Enjolras would be able to continue. He could hear the sounds of clamped-down sobs trying to climb up and out of his throat, could see the muscles working in his jaw. 

“And I wasn't there,” he croaked finally, tears spilling onto his cheeks. “I didn't even try to be there. And I'm sorry, Courf. I'm so sorry."

And finally, after days of rigid silence, after days of shoving past the monster in his chest, trying to sedate it with sleep or drown it with drink, Enjolras let it out the only way it would leave. Finally Enjolras was sobbing, clutching his head in his hands.

“I can’t lose you, Courfeyrac, I can’t lose you, too,” he wept, nearly unintelligible. “I won’t make it, I won’t make it--”

Courfeyrac stood and pulled Enjolras out of his chair and into a hug, shushing him and squeezing him with all of his strength.

“Listen to me,” he said, voice wavering. “Listen to me, okay Enjolras? Barring some kind of freak accident -- which we now know all too well is a possibility, but just listen -- barring some kind of freak accident you are _never_ going to lose me, okay? And _especially_ not for being _hurt._ I mean, this was --” He swallowed past a dry click in his throat. “This was Combeferre.”

Courfeyrac felt Enjolras’s fingers digging into his shirt, felt his shaking intensify, and he pushed a hand through his friend’s golden curls as his own tears began to fall.

“We’re all fucking wrecked, especially you and me, but. But we’re doing the best we can. You’re doing the best you can. Okay? I mean, neither of us was exactly gonna bounce back. He was. I mean, he was a _part_ of us, y’know? He was --”

He tried to keep going but the tears were coming faster, his own monster seizing the chance to escape.

“ _Fuck_ , I miss him,” he sobbed. “I miss him so much!”

It was a long time before either of them could speak again. They ended up on the kitchen floor when their legs wouldn’t support them anymore, crying themselves into headaches and holding each other as if to try and close the gap that Combeferre had left.

“I just --” Enjolras finally said, voice thick. “I just don’t want to let him go. I have to but I don’t _want_ to.”

Courfeyrac sniffed, pulling himself gently out of the hug so he could drag his sleeves across his leaking face.

“I know,” he said with an empty laugh. “God, I know. It sucks, it just all sucks.”

He was quiet for a minute, blinking his eyes back into seeing and sniffling past the blockage in his nose while across from him Enjolras did the same. And what caught his eye in that quiet moment was a note stuck to the fridge, behind and to the right of Enjolras’s left shoulder. It was the last of a series of notices that Combeferre had been fond of leaving his housemates, things ranging from “Please eat the leftovers!” to “Will be back late tonight” to “Puns banned until further notice.”

The one Courfeyrac caught now was simple and cheesy and so quintessentially Combeferre that he could have cried all over again if he had any more tears. A yellow sticky note that read simply, “Smile.”

Courfeyrac inhaled, exhaled, and gave his best attempt to oblige.

“At least we’ll always have little reminders, little pieces,” he offered. “He’ll never be totally gone, y’know?”

Enjolras nodded slowly before turning so that he could lean against Courfeyrac’s shoulder.

“And we’ll have each other,” he replied. 

Courfeyrac smiled and laced his fingers into his friend’s.

“Yeah. There’ll always be us.”


End file.
